Try, Try, Triathlon (The 26th Annual Plunge, Pedal and Pound)

In 1981 I had this crazy idea to put together a triathlon. This is one of those races where participants swim, bike and run on a consecutive basis. Nutty, to be sure. It was dubbed; The Kelly Lake Plunge, Pedal and Pound Triathlon.

My grandparents had a cottage on Kelly Lake in northern Wisconsin and it was a perfect spot to put on such a race. Observers would haul the participants across the lake in boats. The racers would jump in the water and swim back to the cottage. It's about 1 kilometer (0.6 mile) across the lake. Then we would bicycle on a looped course that's 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) long. And finally, we would run around the lake (about 6 kilometers, or 3.5 miles).

That first year there were six contestants. This year, the 26th consecutive year that we've held the race, there were fifteen contestants. The number of brave souls willing to give it a try never dips below ten and usually ends up around twenty. My parents, Bill (75) and Nancy (74) are the only two people to have completed all twenty six editions of the Kelly Lake Plunge, Pedal and Pound Triathlon. With the exception of the Hawaii Ironman race I'm not aware of any other triathlons with such a long pedigree (I'm sure there are a few out there, but I'm not aware of any).

We even print t-shirts (see photo).




The morning of this year's race dawned dark and stormy. A brisk wind out of the northwest and rain on the horizon didn't deter any of the hardy racers.

I hadn't swum a stroke in over two years and yet there I was, swallowing water on every breath (I can only breathe on my right-hand side when I swim and with the northwest wind howling a choppy wave or whitecap hit me full on every-time I turned my face out of the water). Water logged and with my shoulders screaming I did manage to finish the swim only five places off of the lead.

On to the bike where I was hopeful that all of my recent cycling would pay off with a rapid bicycle leg. Five miles in I was about to pass Nick, a previous Plunge, Pedal and Pound champion (Nick is a cross country runner at UW Stevens Point and ran his winning race without his running shoes (i.e., barefoot) because he had forgot to bring them to the race (what are they teaching these kids in college these days?)). As I came up behind him I heard his chain scrapping, skipping and grinding. It appeared that his chain had fallen off. Nick was having trouble getting the chain back on so I hopped off my bike and told him to take my bike. I said that I would get his fixed and then catch up to him and then we could swap back. I gave his bike a quick once-over and saw that his rear derailleur had actually broken. Both of those little pulleys had fallen off and there was no way to get the chain to stay on. I glanced up to see Nick racing into the distance and noticed that it had started to rain. I was able to find one of the little pulleys but not the second one. It wasn't enough to get the bike operable so I waved down one of the other contestants and asked them to tell someone at the cottage to come and pick me up with a car.

I waited about 45 minutes and no one had come along to rescue me so I began to walk the bike down the road. I came to an intersection and it looked like it might be a shortcut home (can't you just hear the Dragnet theme music here? Dum, da dum, dum!). I went about two miles down this shortcut and then it made a hard left hand turn. Right back to where I started. So back the other way I went. I tried to use the bike like a scooter. I'd put my left foot on the pedal and then push off with my right foot to get a good coast going. This worked well on the down-hills, was too much effort on the flats and the uphill sections? Forget it. Halfway back I noted a wide and graveled road marked as a snowmobile trail. A little signpost with an arrow pointing up said, "Kelly Lake". Surely this was the short cut I was looking for. A mile later the gravel had petered out into a narrow dirt road. A mile after that I was bush-whacking my way around just trying to keep on the trail. With the brush scratching me every which way and the mosquitoes and horseflies absolutely swarming over me I turned back. Note: My yellow jersey seemed to attract horseflies and mosquitoes. Keep this in mind if you ever venture into the woods.

By now I had been walking or scooting in my cycling shoes for about seven miles. Cycling shoes are stiff soled and not meant for walking. I could feel the blisters forming on both of my heels and my toes were killing me. Did I mention that it was raining? My feet took a pounding but they will heal. My shoes? I'm not sure. Take a look at my cleats;



The rain had stopped and now the sun was poking out. With the temperature expected to hit 96 degrees I needed to get out of my little predicament in a hurry. I got back on the main road and was trying to decide whether or not to flag down a good samaritan candidate when I saw a cyclist approaching. It was Nick. He had finished the triathlon (in first place) and was concerned when he discovered that I had not yet arrived back. So he got back on the bike and went in search.

After thanking him for rescuing me we switched bikes and I raced back to get the car to return and retrieve Nick. By the time we got back to the cottage the race was over, the temperature had climbed well into the 90's and I had lost interest in finishing. I had helped Nick and he had helped me. That was good enough.

We spent the rest of the day swimming, diving, boating and fishing. Oh yea, and eating Grandma's famous Baked Alaska.

Nick with a pomoxis nigromaculatusAnd a large mouth bass